Methylobacterium tarhaniae sp nov., isolated from arid soil

A reddish-orange-pigmented, Gram-stain-negative, aerobic, facultatively methylotrophic strain, N4211(T), isolated from arid soil, collected from Abuja, Nigeria, was analysed by using a polyphasic approach. Phylogenetic analysis, based on 16S rRNA gene sequences, showed that strain N4211(T) belonged to the genus Methylobactenum. Strain N4211(T) was most closely related to Methylobacterium aquaticum GR16(T) (98.56 %), Methylobactenum platani PMB02(T) (97.95 %) and Methylobacterium vanabile GR3(T) (97.2%), and the phylogenetic similarities to all other species of the genus Methylobacterium with validly published names were less than 97.0%. The major ubiquinones detected were Q-10. The major fatty acids were summed feature 7 (C-18:1 cis11/t9/t6). The DNA G + C content was 67.3 mol%. DNA DNA relatedness of strain N4211(T) and the most closely related strains M. aquaticum DSM 16371(T) and M. platani KCTC 12901(T) were 60.0 and 48.2%, respectively. On the basis of phenotypic, phylogenetic and DNA DNA hybridization data, strain N4211(T) is assigned to a novel species of the genus Methylobacterium for which the name Methylobacterium tarhaniae sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is N4211(T)(=KCIC 23615(T)=DSM 25844(T)).